


Finding a Rose in a Garden of Irises, Love's not a Game but His War

by Ship_On_The_Sea



Series: haha dnf works go brrrrr [1]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: ... angstful pining?, Dream-Centric, LMAO, M/M, No Beta read we die like men, Nothing serious, brief mention of alcohol/underage drinking, but it's only a slightly-spiked cup of punch, but that just means I can always add a part two don't it?, f in chat bois, idk help a girl out here, meaning I didn't look over for typos, not really an au but at the same time not really taken as "canon" if that makes sense?, rather ambiguous ending compared to other fics, so technically canon compliant?, so uhhh there may be some in here lol, someone give this mans a hug, this fic is just me a g g r e s s i v e l y self-projecting what I went through before, uhhh does this count as angst?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24864877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ship_On_The_Sea/pseuds/Ship_On_The_Sea
Summary: Dream realizes something that he should have realized a long time ago, and deals with the aftermath of that realization.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: haha dnf works go brrrrr [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799110
Comments: 73
Kudos: 550





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know I said I'd make an au but my motivation for that went "goodbye!" and I've moved on from that lmao, and I figured I'd make a oneshot instead, that I'm probably going to end up continuing into a story or series because this is interesting to play with. And yeah, like the tags say, this is heavily self-projected, this fic is based off something I went through haha, or at least the first half is because I'm nothing like the way I write Dream lol. And uhhhhhh I think this one's a little angsty I'd put on some rain boots before venturing forth.
> 
> Also yeeeeeah I know this is short compared to my other stuff but hey it's better than nothing haha.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy this! Feel free to comment!

It was more obvious in hindsight, but in the present, it wasn’t. It had grown and formed slowly, like a deep-rooted weed growing hidden in a full and flush garden. Only, it wasn’t a weed, but a rose. A single red rose in a garden of blue irises. 

Dream should’ve acknowledged the signs, should’ve seen them face-to-face and realized what they were hinting at. He should’ve realized he was falling for his best friend a lot sooner. But he had turned from them in casual denial, and only dug a deeper hole for himself. He ignored them, forgot about them. It was strange, just how much he forced himself to remain blissfully ignorant to.

The way he missed his heart rate beginning to rise when he watched George stream with his facecam on, the way it almost fluttered when his smile grew or he shied away from a donation asking him to say something he didn’t want to say. Missed the way the back of his mind unconsciously commented on how attractive he found him, how much he’d love to run his hand through his short hair or kiss him all over. Missed the way his stomach felt jittery like a swarm of butterflies had been released each time he heard name came from George’s mouth, or when his laugh hit just the right note. He kept all of it at bay, hidden under the carpet and away from his consciousness, away from his front thoughts.

But as it often happens, it didn’t say like that forever. The dam had to break at some point. The truth was to be realized eventually.

And it finally seemed to come to him on one seemingly random night. The night he noticed the rose in the irises. The night he opened his eyes and took in the hinting signs. The night his denial caught up with him. The night he realized he was in love.

He had been at an old friend’s house, celebrating his birthday. They had been friends since what felt like birth, having been neighbors for the first decade of his life. He was offhandedly sitting with vaguely familiar faces, friends of his friend, each of them taking turns to play music on the TV in front of them. 

That entire night, half of his mind was on the party, but the other half kept continuously drifting back to George. He truthfully wasn’t having that much fun. He wanted George to be with him, so he had someone he could talk to without the distant fear of judgment or his social battery dropping too low too quickly. Someone to brighten his night up as if it was day, someone he would part with and feel like everything was right and perfect in life. 

Normally those thoughts wouldn’t be so clear in his mind, but someone had stealthily spiked the punch he was drinking, and all the barriers and filters he had in his mind had been temporarily torn down as the small amount of alcohol settled in his system, not enough to make him tipsy, but enough to make him think.

It was enough that when it was his turn to chose a song, he picked one that reminded him or one of his favorite memories with George as they played and talked together with random songs from a music playlist George had faintly providing background noise. It was enough that while the song played, he felt his heart clench in the slightest way possible, and clearly heard his mind ask him ‘Why am I thinking about him so much?’

It was enough that the answer lept forth easily concealed with a question, without the usual resistance to stop it.

‘Do I like George?’

His heart dropped at the same time his stomach rose, as his thoughts silently went radio silent and all motions stilled. Because as soon as that thought had finished, another thought had eagerly shoved its way forward, the answer to his question bursting its way into the front of his mind like a bout of bad news being delivered by a sadistic villain. A single, proud word.

‘Yes.’

In order to ignore what it would mean if that were true, Dream spent the rest of the party pointedly ignoring his own mind, choosing to constantly distract himself by other people and to dodge the recurring thought of ‘I think I like George’ that kept trying to invade his consciousness. Dream didn’t want to face it, didn’t want to stop denying it. He didn’t want to come to terms with what he had thought, with what he knew deep down was true. He wasn’t ready to open that door.

While he was spared at the party, he wasn’t at home the night, arriving after slowly trudging half an hour down the sidewalk with what normally was a fifteen-minute walk. With no other person to distract him, no loud music or random snack food to indulge in, Dream was left with nothing more than his own thoughts, hungrily waiting to attack him when the moment came.

He was able to hold them back while he changed clothes, while he brushed his teeth, but when he laid down in bed and tried to drift off to sleep, he found those wretched thoughts swirling unwantedly in his mind. He frustratedly forced himself to think of other things, to ignore them, and it worked.

Until he began to drift, and found those thoughts had spiraled into one as his subconscious combed through his feelings and hit a realization, and a deafening thought was released, one that abruptly shot through him and caused his eyes to snap open and for him to sit up quickly enough to give himself vertigo.

‘I like George.’

The rest of the night was spent sleepless, the thought blasting through his mind on repeat like a broken record player. 

In all honestly, Dream was terrified. He didn’t want this, he didn’t want to stain their friendship with something dangerous. 

He didn’t know what to do next, didn’t know how it was going to affect him and George. Didn’t know what George would think or react if he knew. Didn’t know if this would cause him to lose George.

That was what terrified Dream the most. Not being in love with his best friend, not him knowing. It was how George could react that scared him the most, and the possibility it would ruin their friendship, and he’d lose George as a friend.

Because that’s all he wanted with George, right? He just wanted his friendship, just wanted him to be in his life platonically. Right? 

His heart panged when he ignored the whisper of thought disagreeing with him, a faintly dulcet voice being drowned among a rapid or frantic yelling.

Another pang of dull pain echoed in Dream’s heart, and he found himself tearing up in the dark. What was he going to do? He was so confused, so scared. In all of his life he never suspected this to happen, or for love to be this horrifying and painful. He never felt so uncertain about his future in his life, and he dropped out of school to pursue a career of being a social media influencer for fuck’s sake.

As more fearful and pained tears gathered and blurred his vision, the could only think of how whoever said love is a game is a liar, because his love is a war, and one he was afraid of losing.


	2. Self-Sacrifice, or Simple Cowardice? He's about to find out.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How is Dream holding up a month after he realizes he's in love with his best friend?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heehoo part 2!!  
> I'm having this entire story remain in Dream's POV for suspense reasons, can't have y'all know what George feels just yet, that would spoil the entire story! haha  
> But I do plan to make another fic with George's POV just for you guys who want it. It'll come out after this one though lmao.

Hiding from his friends in Minecraft while they’re trying to hunt him down and murder him is one thing, something Dream’s used to and getting easier with every day. But hiding recently-uncovered feelings from his best friend so he doesn’t find out is another thing, something Dream isn’t used to and getting harder with every day. Roughly a month had passed since that fateful night, and it was easily one of the hardest months of his entire life.

  
The simple and joking “I love you”s he was used to playfully telling George almost on the daily immediately became almost impossible to get out, his heart wanting to put every ounce of feeling and truth behind it. What used to be zero hesitation and a confident tone was reduced to a hesitant buffer and a more meekly tone, something Dream begged the life out of nobody- either George or his viewers- could pick up on. The shippy teases he was so used to making without a care in a world or without a moment of thought suddenly become hyperaware to him, almost feeling his voice waver with nervousness each time.

  
And that was only while he was in front of a camera, performing for an audience, where it was easier to shove his feelings down. It became harder, increasingly harder, once the cameras were off and the two of them were alone together.

Because there was no barrier to hide behind, no persona to keep up to distract himself, to coward himself behind. It was these moments that his heart and mind argued the most, his head saying what he was doing was a necessary self-sacrifice in order to save his friendship with George, his heart screaming that he’s simply just a coward. He wished he knew which it was, just for a moment of peace in his life. But luck wasn’t on his side, and he had no clue.

“So I was thinking, next challenge, we can try to code it to where hostile mobs like creepers and zombies switch properties or something,” George was explaining his idea, grounding Dream back to reality before he was zoning out, a recently common occurrence nowadays. “That, or we can try to randomize the properties, make it hard to tell what each mob would do.”

“I mean, it shouldn’t be too hard, we were able to give all mobs the properties of a creeper before,” Dream replied casually, grateful for the distraction in the form of a conversation about coding. Even though George was the reason he got into coding to begin with….

“Yeah, that’s why I thought of it, I was remembering that video,” George happily stated, falling silent when Dream replied with a distant “Hmm”, Dream suddenly feeling like ending the call and getting as far away from his computer and George as possible.

“Hey,” came the sudden serious and concerned voice from George, all edges dropped, his voice like silk to his ears. “Are you okay? You haven’t been acting like yourself lately, if that makes sense… Are you getting enough sleep?”

Shit. Dream wasn’t being as stealthy as he thought he was. Slight panic began to settle on his shoulders as Dream swallowed nervously, wracking his mind for an excuse. Sleep, he said something about sleeping.

“It’s nothing,” Dream tried to reply as casually as possible, “My neighbors just got a new dog and he barks all night. I’ve been kept up a lot these past few nights, but it’s nothing.”

“You can always file for a noise complaint, you live in an apartment, right?” was George’s immediate response, and Dream internally sighed in relief, glad George took the excuse without suspicion.

“Nah, it’s not worth it,” Dream replied. “I think I overheard them talking about giving him away because he keeps barking, so I’ll be fine.”

“Oh, okay,” George said, and they fell silent for a moment before George spoke up again, voice raised in a caring notion. “We can always stay in a call with each other if it helps, I know we’ve done that before once or twice. I don’t know…” Another pause separated his sentences. “I just don’t want you to miss any more sleep. That isn’t fun at all.”

“No, it’s fine, George, you don’t have to do that,” Dream said, playing with the hem of his shirt as he felt his chest warm with the offer, knowing as soon as they parted he’d grow angry at himself for it. “I’ll be fine, I promise.”

“You better,” George joked lightly, a small laugh escaping him as more of a sigh than anything, a beautiful melody to Dream’s ears that he both loved and hated as he felt his heart begin to faintly ache. “Don’t make me, like, buy you noise-canceling headphones or something, because I will.”

Dream laughed softly, not wanting to disturb the seemingly calm and gentle atmosphere between them with a maniacal cackle. “You better not.”

They talked for another ten minutes before George decided to leave in order to play around with coding his newest idea, Dream casually parting him goodbye before leaving the call.

One second passed, then two seconds, and then Dream sighed with a frustrated groan, slumping in his chair with a defeated sigh.

“He fucking noticed, shit,” he scolded himself, “And what was that excuse?! A new dog, what are you, an idiot?!” Memories of their past conversation flickered through his mind, and another sigh wracked through him as the same warmth from earlier was felt beginning to bloom in his chest. Not feeling enough energy to pound the feeling into the floor, Dream slumped forward and buried his head in his arms on top of his desk, feeling the usual heavy chill of shame chase after the pleasant feeling, nuzzling his sleeve to wipe a single tear from his eye

Why did it have to be George? Out of the seven billion people on the planet, why him?

‘Why not?’ came the betraying thought without hesitation, and Dream wanted to slap himself because it was right. Why wouldn’t he be in love with him? Beautiful and skilled, he was one of the greatest people Dream had the fortune of meeting. Even the flaws Dream saw come from him over the years of knowing him didn’t negatively affect the outcome of what he saw in George, finding that he loved his flaws just as much as his perks.

Another frustrated groan. That meant Dream had fallen hard, didn’t it?

  
Fucking hell. 

* * *

He fucked up, he fucked everything up. Everything wrong was about to happen, and it was all his fault. All Dream’s fault.  
The lack of sleep had eaten away at him too much, and another week had passed since he told George his neighbors got the dog, two days after saying they finally got rid of it and he was finally able to sleep. It was a lie, of course, Dream continuing to have a majorly fucked-up sleep schedule. But the lack of sleep had finally gotten to him, and he was letting his snappy temper get to him as they recorded a video on the idea George was able to code, aggressive attitude obvious and his behavior almost reckless with how tired he felt. He just wanted one night’s rest without waking up and hating himself for being in love and not telling George about it, feeling guilt and shame for the way he felt.

A frustrated yell came barreling from him as he died yet again to a hostile mob, this time a spider with the mechanics of a skeleton. “This is bullshit!”

“Okay, I’m calling a time-out,” George suddenly demanded. “Turn your recording off.” Growing confused and slightly paranoid, Dream shut his recording software off, drumming his fingers on his desk.

“What? You alright?” Dream asked, and he heard George scoff.

“I should be asking you that, you’ve been nothing but snappy today. Are _you_ alright?”

“Yeah,” Dream tried to lie, but was swiftly caught and interrupted.

“No, you’re not,” George began to drill him. “What’s wrong, Dream?”

“Just tired,” Dream admitted, half-truthfully. It was a combination of his conflicted feelings and the lack of sleep, honestly, that was making him act that way he was right now. He was tired and frustrated. Never a good combination. “Haven’t been sleeping well.”

“But I thought your neighbors got rid of the dog,” George commented, confused. “I thought you told me you were sleeping well now.”

“It was never a dog keeping me up, George,” Dream suddenly snapped, and internally punched himself in the face as soon as he registered the words he said. God, he’s an idiot! Why did he just say that?!

“What?” came George’s immediate response, sounding equally betrayed and upset. “It wasn’t a dog?”

Dream fell silent, feeling a small bout of panic start to fill his chest. He didn’t trust himself to speak, didn’t want to lie or tell the truth.

“Dream, it wasn’t a dog? Why did you lie to me?” George asked again, voice sounding hurt. “What’s wrong? What’s been keeping you up?”

“Nothing…” Dream tried quietly, trying to be unheard. But George heard him, and didn’t like that answer.

“It can’t be nothing if you can’t sleep, Dream! And you never lie to me like this! Not when it’s serious.” His voice stretched to a plead. “Please, Dream, you can talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong, _please_.”

Something in Dream broke, like a porcelain vase hitting the tiled floor of a house, and tears quickly shot to his eyes as he took a sharp inhale, the frustratedly exhausted words tumbling from his mouth before he could stop them. “I CAN’T SLEEP BECAUSE I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU AND IT’S KILLING ME!”

His hand immediately slapped over his mouth, hot tears racing down his face.

Oh. Oh no.

He fucked up.

He just ruined everything.

Dream could do nothing but sit in his chair, tears falling from his face at a rapid pace, as he waited for George’s response. But he wasn’t going to get it right that second, because George had gotten silent, dangerously silent, and it was only killing Dream more and more.

Dream uncovered his mouth, hand trembling. “George,” he whimpered. “I-”

“Dream.” George’s voice came through the air like a knife, shutting Dream up immediately.

Dream had never felt more dreadfully scared in his entire life. This was it, he was about to lose him forever. Have the one thing he never wanted to happen actually happen. God, he fucked up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, this is the end of this story! HAHA, I left you on a cliffhanger!! But good news: This will pick up with another fic from George's POV, where we get to see his feelings and what he has to say to Dream. I'm sorry this is so short but hey, not all of my fics are going to be 30+k novellas lmao
> 
> I hope you enjoyed, and I hope you have a great day/night! I love you guys!!!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading this, and feel free to comment if you want, I absolutely adore reading everyone's comments! Ngl, I'm more than likely going to continue this as a story or series? So I'd keep my eyes out haha.
> 
> Also funny fact: while in this story spiked punch tore down the thought barriers and allowed Dream to realize his feelings, what made me realize mine was an energy drink. Yeah. The first time I have an energy drink and I go and accidentally find out I'm in love with my best friend. Hilarious, right?
> 
> Also if/when I add on to this, would you guys like a POV from George, or for it to strictly stay Dream-centric?
> 
> Anyways, have a great day/night! I love you guys <3!!


End file.
